A bunk-house man--old and half blind--was crossing the street, and roaring down on him came a Third Avenue car. It was Gar's one opportunity, and, with a spring, he pushed the old fellow on his face out of danger, but the wheels pinned Gar to the rails. "I kin tell ye, boys," he said to the few friends who lingered around his cot at the close, "I'll do no simperin' around God wid hard-luck stories; I'll take what's comin' an' vamoose to m' place--whether up or down." There was a slight pressure of the big hands, then they became limp and cold. The bouncer was dead. THE KING OF THE BABOONS BY PERCEVAL GIBBON ILLUSTRATION BY EUGENE HIGGINS [Illustration: "THEY SAT ON THEIR RUMPS OUTSIDE THE CIRCLE OF KAFIRS"] The old yellow-fanged dog-baboon that was chained to a post in the yard had a dangerous trick of throwing stones. He would seize a piece of rock in two hands, stand erect and whirl round on his heels till momentum was obtained, and then let go. The missile would fly like a bullet, and woe betide any one who stood in its way! The performance precluded any kind of aim,--the stone was hurled off at any chance tangent,--and it was bad luck rather than any kind of malice that guided one three-pound boulder through the window, across the kitchen, and into a portrait of Judas de Beer which hung on the wall not half a dozen feet from the slumbering Vrouw Grobelaar. She bounced from her chair and ballooned to the door with a silent, swift agility most surprising to see in a lady of her generous build, and not a sound did she utter. She was of good veldt-bred fighting stock, which never cried out till it was hurt, and there was even something of compassion in her face as Frikkie jumped from the stoop with a twelve-foot thong in his hand. After all, it was the baboon that suffered most, if his yells were any index to his feelings. Frikkie could smudge a fly ten feet off with just a flick of his whip, and all the tender parts of the accomplished animal came in for ruthless attention. "He ought to be shot," was Frikkie's remark as he coiled up the thong, at the end of the discipline. "A baboon is past teaching if he has bad habits. He is more like a man than a beast." The Vrouw Grobelaar seated herself in the stoop-chair which by common consent was reserved for her use, and shook her head. "Baboons are uncanny things," she answered slowly. "When you shoot them, you can never be quite sure how much murder there is in it. The old story is that some of them have souls and some not; and it is quite certain that they can talk when they will. You have heard them crying in the night sometimes. Well, you ask a Kafir what that means. Ask an old wise Kafir, not a young one that has forgotten the wisdom of the black people and learned only the foolishness of the white." "What does it mean, Tante?" It was I who put the question. Katje, too, seemed curious. The old lady eyed me gloomily.